Visitors to FIFA World Cup matches in Dallas this summer will see two kinds of dogs patrolling the venues — the furry variety, and a fleet of Boston Dynamics' Spot quadruped robots, deployed alongside human security officers for perimeter inspections. The deployment marks one of the highest-profile uses to date of legged security robots at a major global sporting event.
What the robots will actually do
The autonomous Spot robots — co-branded with parent company Hyundai Motor Group — walk the concourses and perimeters of World Cup venues looking for unattended bags, suspicious behavior and other potential hazards. According to operators, the dogs notify human officers when a situation appears to need intervention; they are designed to extend the eyes and ears of on-site security, not to replace it.
Not facial recognition — Boston Dynamics pushes back
A widely shared TikTok video claimed the robots were performing facial scanning to verify ticket holders. Boston Dynamics has explicitly refuted the claim, telling Texas broadcaster WFAA in a statement that the Spot units deployed at the World Cup "do not have facial recognition capabilities" and are limited to perimeter inspections and investigation of suspicious packages. The Massachusetts-based company has long stated that its commercial Spot platform is shipped without face-recognition software.
A multi-million-dollar security buildout
The Dallas Police Department received $51.5 million from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support World Cup security operations, with $1.3 million earmarked for equipment and $10 million for drone mitigation technology. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has highlighted that resources surge whenever the state hosts major events, citing past Super Bowls at AT&T Stadium — the same Arlington venue that will host several World Cup matches.
Robo-dogs go global at the 2026 tournament
Dallas is not alone. According to Wired, World Cup venues in Mexico are deploying the "K9-X", a semi-autonomous quadruped from an undisclosed manufacturer that is teleoperated more like an aerial drone than fully autonomous. The K9-X already made its public debut at a Club de Futbol Monterrey match at BBVA Stadium, one of Mexico's three confirmed World Cup venues. Similar deployments have also been seen at the Indianapolis 500 and on the Las Vegas Strip, mirroring the global humanoid and ground-robot deployments now visible across stadiums, factories and logistics centres.
The bigger picture
"You're going to see more and more robots — whether it is ground robots, aerial robots. We even have plans in the future for aquatic robots," Kurt George, vice president at security-robotics firm Asylon Robotics, told Nevada's Kolo 8 News. The pattern fits the accelerating shift from prototypes to fielded fleets, with quadruped platforms increasingly framed as force multipliers for security teams rather than autonomous replacements. The World Cup deployment will be one of the largest real-world stress tests yet for legged security robots in front of a global audience.
Reporting based on coverage by Deseret News (Hayden Madson, 2 June 2026), Dallas Express, Wired and WFAA.